Armor Alchemist
by the-east-hunter
Summary: Alphonse Elric grew up an only child, making rash and bad decisions after his mothers death, or, at least that's what he thnks. Riza Hawkeye doesn't know why she joined the military. Winry misses a stranger. Havok, Breda, Fury, and Falman don't know what brought them together. Rash choices to save loved ones has altered the world, leaving two heros forgotten. Fullmetal alchemist AU
1. Armor Alchemist

"You don't have to do this."

"I am well aware of that."

"Heh, I guess I could use the company in hell."

"It's where we were both going to end up anyway."

There is the sounds of hands hitting the floor.

"I just hope this works."

And then there was nothing.

"Someone help!" A woman's back brushed up against the cold, hard tiles of the dead end. She clutched her purse protectively to her chest, breath coming a little too fast and heart racing as the man approached her, smelling all too much of alcohol and bearing down on her with a knife that looked all too sharp.

"Come on lady, just the purse is all I need." She flinched away as his spare hand came up to caress her soft cheek, tears brimming her eyes as calloused fingers slid down and began curving their way around her fragile neck, short pants of air escaping her mouth as if to see how many last breaths she could have before her short life ended.

"Wow, this is a suspicious alleyway. All dark and everything, even a dead end, can you get more cliché?" A boyish voice broke the tension in the air like when a good hammer comes in contact with glass, leaving dangerous shards lying around, waiting to cut an unsuspecting someone.

"How about you just walk away kid?" The man sneered, turning his face around, allowing a few of his fingers to linger on her neck for a few moments before allowing his back to face the girl, who promptly lost her will to stand, collapsing to the ground, shivering. Then man's cold gaze landed on the short figure, a beige jacket billowing slightly in the breeze.

"Kid? I'm a little more than that." Slowly, a white gloved hand rose upward, something blue showing on the palm before it allowed the face to be seen. As faces go, it was a good face, albeit a little childish. It seemed to hold onto some of the softness of a younger person, though the boy must have been fifteen or sixteen. Bright blonde hair had a small part to the side, cheerful golden eyes staring at the much bigger man full of defiance.

"I gave you a chance, twerp." The man grunted before beginning to advance on the boy, the knife held out threateningly. There was a smirk, the sound of the hands clapping together, and then white gloves hitting the side of a building, blue sparks spidering across and sinking into the concrete.

"Fair enough." The boy replies, and suddenly there's a giant metal suit of armor standing beside him, both of them in a defensive posture, and the man feels his heart sink down to somewhere close to the center of the Earth.

"Y-you're him, aren't you? The Alchemist of the people, the Armor Alchemist-"

"Alfonse Elric at your service." He gave a mock salute.

_Too easy. _I dusted off my hands slightly as a few men came to take away the man. I had been keeping an eye on this guy all day while I was looking for some groceries and sure enough - he had been up to no good. I slid my gloves carefully off my hands and pocketed them.

"Are you really the Armor Alchemist?" I jumped slightly, looking down at the women who had yet to retrieve her bearing enough to stand up.

"Heh, yeah, but you can just call me Al, everyone does." I extended my hand out towards her, and she gratefully took it.

"So it's true then, you normally fight side by side with a suit of metal by sending part of your soul into it?" She asked in disbelief, and I felt myself blush slightly.

"Something like that, it's mostly instinctual, really." I rubbed the back of my head, avoiding eye contact.

"A-amazing."

"Heh, I guess." I wasn't a huge fan of fans, if that made any sense. I had met plenty of people in my life that deserved the praise of the people far more than me, but when people looked at me with such awe… all I could really do was just vaguely agree with them so as not to unintentionally offend someone.

Eventually the local police came to make sure that she was okay and I found my opportunity to slip out. When I was younger, my teacher had made sure that I knew how to draw transfiguration circles like the back of my hand, and I did, but over time I had discovered that taking the time to draw the circle when you're in the middle of a fight can make you next to killed.

Alchemy was the embodiment of a circle. You took elements , deconstructed it, and then returned it to become a whole. I made sense that in order to perform alchemy, you had to draw circles as the base of alchemy. It was eventually discovered that you could have transmutation circles on your hands making a faster and easier way to perform alchemy. But you could only have one kind of transmutation circle, so it was relatively limiting, and on top of that you had to have extensive knowledge of transmutation circles, especially the one that you had one your hand. The likeliness of having bad rebound was increased exponentially, and around 99% of the people who had tried similar things had lost their hands, arms, legs, lives, and had transmuted themselves into disfigured monsters that either had to be put down or died shortly. Mastering the technique took years, sometimes decades, though there were things you could do to make it a little easier. Essentially the more circles you had the more stable the transmutation circles were. For instance, I had two circles on my gloves and then I made a third one by clapping my hands together.

A lot of soldiers from Ishval had even had transmutation circles tattooed on their hands, which was extremely dangerous in daily life, requiring a lot of discipline to not inadvertently cause a transmutation and ruin their own or someone else's life.

Finally, my teacher was so incredible that she could create transmutation with no actual drawn circle, the only circle she had was with her hands by clapping them. I always told people that I had gotten my inspiration for my technique by her, creating my own transfiguration circle that could do most basic and intermediate alchemy, putting it on two gloves so I could perform alchemy just with a clap of my hands, but really I wasn't sure when I had first thought up that idea. It came relatively naturally to me, like I had gained inspiration from something even closer to me than teacher, something I had seen more often.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts as I exited the alleyway, straightening out my suit vest. I had been getting lost in thought a lot recently. Not a desirably thing.

"Ah, Alphonse!" My head lifted at the familiar hardened female voice.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye!" I greeted, giving a small wave as I approached the blonde haired woman. "It's great to see you, how have you been?" She gave me a smile, though a sigh was on the tip of her tongue.

" As good as one can expect. Havoc's been dumped again, so there's no chance of him showing up to work for at least a week. Breda, Falman, and Fuery were responsible for it this time, they set it up and everything." She raised a hand to her forehead.

"It's a wonder that you can keep those four in line at all." I threw her an encouraging smile.

"Well, Armstrong does help when he can." A sudden thought assaulted my brain, coming from nowhere but seeming important.

"Hawkeye, if you don't mind me asking, why did you join the military?" She frowned slightly at that, and for a second I was afraid I'd crossed my boundaries.

"I'm not really sure, I joined after my fathers' death. Perhaps I felt like I could find away to prevent death. Where are you headed to next?" She seemed eager to change the subject, and I raised an eyebrow slightly, but I was too polite to probe.

"I think I have a lead on… something." I gave her a pointed look, and I knew Hawkeye was well aware of what I was talking about. "I'm going to see if I can find anything xingese alkahestry."

"Xingese alkahestry? Not alchemy?"

"It's similar, I think. But not? I'm not sure, that's why I'm looking into it."

"Well, best of luck, Alphonse." Riza gave me a quick pat on the shoulder.

Riza Hawkeye stood alone in the room. She didn't dare turn on the light, allowing the setting sun to light up the room through the window. There hadn't been a Colonel who had taken this room in several decades, the room staying empty, as if forgotten and caught in time. Slowly, she pulled out her gun.

'_why did you join the military?' _Alphonse Elric had spurred a feeling in her that she hadn't felt in a while, one she couldn't name. There had been a time she knew the answer, she _knew _that she had joined for a reason. For _someone _or _something, _but the cause was lost to her, like a word on the tip of her tongue that simply wouldn't put itself into formable letters.

Why was she here, of all places? What had led her to an abandoned room? What was the one thing missing from the scene she was taking in?

Sharply she turned around, leaving the room behind her, only to haunt her dreams.


	2. The parting of ways

**Okay, here's the next chapter! I finally decided at what point and time this takes place and all that. Just so you know this is in the manga pretty much, right before they go to Briggs. So a little while after Gluttony ate Ling and Ed, if that helped at all, now, onto your reviews.**

** Cutiepie120048 – Wow, I'm glad you're excited. I think you're one of the first ones to notice that them missing is actually part of the plot… oh well, that becomes more apparent in this chapter, like, a lot**

** Lilaclily00 – Yeah, sadly you don't get to see a ton of Al in action in this chapter, but next chapter I'm there will be more opportunity to show him off!**

** Lamar Thompson – thanks so much! I'm (hopefully) gonna move this in a way you guys'll like. I ended up doing the manga, so, essentially brotherhood.**

** Guest- Hey there! Thanks so much for the review! I appreciate it so much!**

**Blueorgray1236 – it's not just an alphonse story, though he is a main part of it. It does have a lot of about how two people are missing, not really sure where this is going, but I do have some ideas…  
**

**oOo**

My bright golden eyes opened to a pure white landscape, corn yellow hair rustling slightly in an unseen wind. In front of me, it's back facing me, was a massive piece of armor. I squinted slightly, attempting to get a better look at it, before my eyes widened, and I took a few steps back. I recognized that armor, it was the armor that was in our house before I… well, I would avoid that train of thought for now.

There was a slightly rustle behind me.

I whipped around, my short hair rustling in the air. There was another figure, their back towards me, like a wall, and at first I would have ventured to say that it was me. They were blonde, and had my red jacket on, but after taking another minute to look at their appearance, I noticed that they were definitely not me. I could see the palms of his gloved hands, no transmutations circles to be seen, and though my hair was blonde, his was a deep rich gold color, like someone had turned gold and sunlight into string. Said hair was in a braid, and no matter what, I never braided my hair, mostly because it was too short to.

"Hey." My voice, though relatively quiet, seemed like a shout compared to the quiet air, and the person in front of me flinched slightly, showing that they had only just noticed my presence. Slowly they tilted their head back, as if to look upward, and I watched in horror as their body began to dissipate in the air.

"Wait, no, who are you?!" I began to rush toward the boy, either I was going nowhere, or they were going forward, but I didn't get any closer to them. His hand reached into the air, as if in slow motion, fingertips turning to nothing but dust.

"No, please, tell me who you are!" I shouted, and found myself suddenly right behind him, my hand reached towards his back, and once it came in contact with it I found myself alone, pale dust swirling around me.

"No!" I sat up in my bed, eye wide with panic, hand reaching out towards nothing but air. I sat there, in my borrowed room for a few minutes, before blinking away my tiredness and brushing off my dreams. I looked out the window, it was pretty early, but I knew that any chance of sleeping was gone at this point.

I quickly put on my clothes for the day, brushing my combing my hair down. Maybe I should grow it out… I left the thought alone, now, with the homunculi, the Father, and everything else to deal with was definitely not the time for thinking about fashion. My hands paused over the bright red jacket, before I finally grabbed an alternative of a much more casual looking brown one. Red wasn't really my color anyway.

(-_-) Linebreak

"Here you go, Black Hayate, you have to eat so you can grow big and strong while I'm away." The man smiled as the dog began chewing up the drumstick, his hand petting it carefully before adjusting his glasses.

"Sergeant Fuery!" He looked up and smiled at the face.

"Officer Falman, you haven't left yet either?" It still was tugging at his heart strings, the fact that their little group was being spread out so far away from each other.

"No, it's going to be so cold up in the North, I'm going to stall as long as I can." Fury gave a small laugh, standing up so that he could face Falman.

"What's that?" He gestured to a black and white board that Falman was holding under one of his arms.

"Oh, this? Well I was cleaning out my place, packing the things I wanted to keep, throwing some stuff away, returning borrowed items… and I found this chess board. I have no idea who gave it to me, I definitely didn't buy it, even though I used it a lot while I was watching #66."

"Woah, really?" Falman was known for his impeccable memory, possible even photographic, it was one of his specialties, so the fact that he couldn't remember something was borderline unheard of.

"Yeah, I was thinking about asking around Hq quickly before I leave, see if anyone knows the owner of it."

"If you don't find them you could always ditch it in one of those empty officers, I mean, I'd feel guilty if we just threw away such a nice chess board." There was a moment of pause for thinking before Falman gave a small nod.

"Good idea, Fuery **(A/N how the heck do you spell his name?)**, I certainly hope that we do meet again." Flaman fell into a salute. "Until then."

"Until then." Fury responded with his own salute before turning back to the dog. "You too, Hayate, until next time." He gave it a small pat on the head.

oOo

She wasn't sure what she was doing, returning to this place. Maybe it's because it felt like it was the last place that hadn't been touched by Fuhrer Bradley in all of central, despite being in HQ, and she knew it would be a long time until she had another chance to be away from him after the end of this day.

She slowly walked around the room, drinking in its appearance, trying to memorize its feel. There were books laying out, old paperwork from the previous owner still laying out, as if the room was caught somewhere in time, and hadn't moved since the moment that whoever should have finished that paperwork had left. A thick layer of dust covered everything, and her hand reached toward a small picture frame lying on the desk.

It was in such a position that whoever was sitting there could easily look up and glance at the picture, as if in a comforting fashion, an her hand carefully wiped off the dust, before they were met with disappointment.

Apparently the picture had sat in front of the window for so long whatever had been there was long bleached by the sun, only the vague outlines of some sort of group photo still visible. Her eyes landed on the one thing that wasn't covered in dust, a single chess board.

Her brows knitted together as she opened it. It looked like the one that Falman had been using a few weeks ago. The pieces certainly were well cared for, carved carefully into the wood. She carefully picked up the Black King, turning it over in her hand.

"AH!" A face flashed into her mind, too fast to take in any features but it had been there all the same. The piece clattered onto the desk, and a distinct sound came from it. Hawkeye picked it back up, tapping her finger to it a few times to make sure that she had heard correctly. Her fingers twisted the pieces base carefully, exposing a small compartment.

"Dangit." She whispered to herself as she smoothed out the small piece of paper. "What is going on here?"

oOo

"I brought you a present." Havoc looked up from his position, propped up on a hospital bed to see Breda dropping a pair of dumbbells. He attempted to ignore how much it affected him when he could only feel the disturbance of the new weight from his waist up.

"Oh, come on, really? Couldn't you get me magazines or something? Like ones with hot girls in them." Breda gave a sigh.

"You better not slack off while we're gone." Havoc looked off to the side, guilt gnawing away at him.

"Then you guys better be careful out there. You know they're bound to stick all of you in the worst situations possible. Death on the battle field isn't unusual." Breda gave a grunt, before gesturing to Havoc's immobile legs.

"What are you gonna be doing while the rest of us are out risking out skins?" Havoc gave a small shrug in return.

"My parents run a convenience store, I can probably work there, answering phones and stuff. Something that doesn't require… foot work." There was a small bit of silence between the two men. Not the awkward kind, but the companionable silence that came when there was such an understanding between individuals that words did it no justice and seemed superfluous.

"I guess I'll see you around, Havok." Breda gave a small wave and began walking towards the door. Knuckles turned white as hands gripped bed sheets tightly.

"How did we meet?" The words echoed through the sterile room, and the man with flaming orange hair turned back to his friend.

"What do you mean?"

"Breda, I've been sitting in this hospital room with nothing to do but think, and I realized that I have no idea how all of us met, or even why all of us met. We were all posted in different areas at first, we all come from different background with different positions in the military. Who, or what, brought all of us together? Dangit, I can't even remember how I managed to survive enough to be paralyzed and not dead from the other day!" Havoc looked at Breda desperately for a moment, before said man opened the door.

"I- I don't know."

oOo

I sighed to myself. I couldn't believe this, I had been up and down central, asking around, but it looked like the girl with the black and white cat was gone. She was the best lead on how to fight the Father, or whatever exactly that guy was. It was unnerving how much he looked like my dad. When I hadn't been able to use alchemy both her and Scar were able to.

It looked like I'd have to hit the books instead. I just felt bad after wasting all of that time. The Central library was a huge place heavy with the familiar musty scents of books and dust that had collected over the years. My shoulders slumped slightly. It was going to take forever to search this place.

A few hours later there were books splayed out around me, in almost a nest type fashion, open to different pages that said something about Xing and their purification arts.

"Come on!" I said in exasperation. "I swear, I think someone has purposefully left out anything more than a side comment about Xing's alchemy." I tsked slightly, getting up to grab another book. This sure would go faster if there was at least someone else helping out…

"Young Alphonse!" I jumped slightly and sharply looked around for the owner of the voice. Only one man I knew had a voice even remotely like that.

"Major Armstrong?"

"Shh, we are in the library, are we not?" I only gave a small nod as I noticed his head appearing above one of the bookshelves. Dear goodness, I knew I was short, but I felt like an ant next to that man.

"It is my understanding that you are searching for a girl with a black and white cat that hails from Xing."

"Yeah, there are some things I need to ask her." I rubbed the back of my neck.

"You are in luck, my boy, I happen to have received word that she was seen heading North." I brightened instantly, looking up at General Armstrong with a beaming expression. Armstrong had always been nice to me, all sparkles and smile, sometimes tearing his shirt off to 'inspire me' when I was feeling down. That usually did the opposite, but I still appreciated what he was trying to do.

"Really?" He gave a proud nod.

"However, if you are headed up there it is best for you to stay at Briggs, the northern HQ for the military." He produced a crisp envelope out of nowhere and handed it to me.

"What's this?" I asked, turning it over in my hands.

"It's so hopefully you won't get killed." Armstrong replied seriously, and the mans sparkles seemed to dim slightly.

"Why? What's going to kill me?" I asked, backing away a bit.

"General Briggs of the North wall… Armstrong."

oOo

He was surrounded by white. That's all he was sure of. White, white, white. Everywhere. It was a rather annoying color, as colors go. Bland, like plain yogurt. Not even vanilla yogurt, but the kind that's specifically made so that it doesn't have any flavor at all.

Lazily, he reached his hand out, because to be quite honest just floating here was rather boring. He then took a moment to observe his hand. It was a good hand at that, though there was some rather ugly scar on it, and it was pretty burned too. Hm, he distantly wondered why.

It was at that point that his calm began to fade. The rather abrupt moment when he realized that he didn't know his own name, didn't know where he was, what he was doing right now, nor what he had been doing before this point in time. He jerked so that he was vertical, though he really wasn't sure which way was up or down here, there didn't seem to be any laws for gravity, or anything to indicate a correct way.

"Hello?" He called into the abyss. He was mildly shocked when there was a response.

"Colonel?" The name brought images to his mind, half memories that made him so shocked at the thought that he could ever forget them, but even as he merely floated in the nothingness, he could feel them slowly fading away.

"Is that you, Colonel?" The man frantically turned around to see himself facing a rather blurry image of a boy, who looked a little worse for wear, a red jacket fluttering around him.

"F-Fullmetal?" He tried to reach for those scraps of memories, hoping he was matching up the images with the right name.

"Good. Listen, our plan worked, but right now were trapped inside the gate, and… and I'm forgetting things." The boy looked off to the side, hi eyes of molten gold showing worry.

"How do we escape from… where ever we are?" He placed a palm to the side of his head, as if it could stem to the flow of his memories, leaking away. He needed to hold onto what he could for as long as he could. This was important, he knew that much. Right now that was important. He couldn't remember what the plan had been, but that was probably important too.

"Have you thought up anything since last time?" The boy, _Fullmetal, _he reinserted. He had to hold onto that too.

"Last time?" Fullmetal's eyes widened in horror.

"Crap, I've been in the gate before, but you haven't. Maybe, maybe what's happening to me is happening to you faster." But the man didn't register the words, trying too desperately to hold onto the images flashing through his mind, even the horrific one, because at least that was something.

"I'll- et us- eed to – remember- do-." Fullmetal looked around in dismay as his form began to dissipate.

"What?" The men reached out towards the boy, but it was useless.

"Rrrgh, sorry, I'm losing my connection to your gate. Listen, I need you to hold out for just a little while longer, I'm gonna try to get us out of here." The man nodded, even though he really didn't understand, he felt like he needed to at least have a appearance here.

"Wait!" Fullmetal's figure cleared up at least a little bit. "…what's my name?" The boy gave him a pained expression.

"I'm sorry, I can't remember." And then he was gone, and the man was once again alone, and he had to wonder how long his sanity would last.

**Okay, thanks for bearing with me and getting through this chapter. This was mostly spent in an attempt to build up the plot and get you an idea on what exactly is going on. The next chapter will feature a TON more Al, who I'm super excited to write. And **_**maybe **_**some Ed POV, but I'm not too sure yet. I hope you guys are liking this. Your reviews and follows and favorite definitely make me feel awesome!**

**~the-east-hunter**


	3. Authors note - not to worry!

**Hey! This is a quickie authors note. So, I have reread all of fma, and I have turned my thoughts once again to this au. I believe I began to write this after I watched 03, and while I was halfway through the manga. Since then I have reread the manga, and I have decided how I want to take this fanfic. However, a few parts of it will be slightly different (not hugely) so I'll probably start an entirely new document and that kind of thing. So how many of you guys are still interested in this story?**


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